Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus)

The first time I read this passage in The Message Bible, a paraphrase prayerfully and carefully written by Eugene Peterson for his congregation in which he was pastor, I was blessed beyond the words!  I had always enjoyed Paul’s inspired words to the Roman churches but even more so as directives in how to live a life committed to Christ are made crystal clear in my language of understanding! 

This particular part of the letter to the Romans is the pivot point from explaining who we are to what we do. I have used this passage over the years for training young leaders in The Body of Christ too many times to count!  Romans 12 has become the key passage for understanding how to be in Christ, as a representative of Christ, as we serve The Body in God’s Sprit of love and truth.  The secret?  Jesus lives in us, (Romans 8:10) and His Holy Spirit guides us. God’s is always at work to mold and shape us into what HE created us to be in the Body.  To God be the glory!  Yes!

So, here’s what I want you to do—God helping you…

Romans 12, The Message

Place Your Life Before God

12 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

³ I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

^4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

^6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

* * *

^9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

^11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

^14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

^17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

^20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

WHO WE ARE—EMBRACE THE GRACE!

Paul spent time meticulously assuring us who we are in Jesus who died for our sins, removing them completely from us as we repent.  “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory,” Romans 3:23.  No one is exempt.  But the Good News is that everyone who confesses that Jesus is Lord, (Jews and non-Jews), is saved from all our sins—forever!  We are all God’s beloved, the “chosen” and the “grafted-in adopted” together!  God set things right in our relationship to Him by sending His One and Only Son to save us from those sins that blocked our view from God!  Jesus, raised from death as the Victor over the enemy, gives hope to all who believe in Him—eternal life. 

Yes, all are welcome. All are offered the gift of God’s salvation.  It is us who mustdecide to accept the offered gift with humbled gratitude.  Those who do accept, believe and repent of our sins in Jesus Name have not only been forgiven; we become children of God—a work of God’s generous love, mercy, and grace—forever!  Our loving relationship with God secured, made right by Jesus.  This is blessed assurance, indeed!  This is unfailing love.

WHAT WE DO

Now God inspires Paul to write how to live a life that gives God glory as we seek His help to be more and more like Jesus, His Son in our everyday lives.  Paul not only gives us the “should” he tells us the “how.”  Paul teaches us what to expect when God’s Holy Spirit causes new shifts in our behavior that will occur as we cease pursuing self and wholeheartedly pursue what God wants most—His best for our good!

Notice all the commanding action verbs…

• PLACE our lives before God as an offering giving all of us to all of Him.
• EMBRACE what God does.
• FIX OUR ATTENTION on God.
• READILY RECOGNIZE what God wants and QUICKLY RESPOND.

All this action, in Jesus Name, for God’s glory, comes with a promise:  God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.  God, helping us…

Gratefully embrace the grace of God to avoid arrogance and pride!

“The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”

God gives us gifts withing the Body to help the Body of Christ grow healthy and strong—for our good and His glory!  Paul warns of evil’s schemes and behaviors that distract, deceive, and destroy our relationships with God and each other:  greed, irritation, frustration, envy, arrogance, pride, and comparisons.  Instead, “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.” 

Oh church, how we need this message to penetrate our hearts today.  Being the Body of Christ is not just another business entity who strives to make a profit—instead we are God’s children, molded and shaped by God, to be ambassadors of the One who saved us from our sins and sets us free to love each other like He loves us.  “Freely you have received; freely give.” –Jesus, Matthew 10:8 “We love God because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:29 

The “center of who we are” is God’s perfect love that grows within a heart given to Him.  Loving and living from the core of our being given to God, God helping us, we will learn to:

• Keep ourselves fueled and on fire—not to do harm but to provide warmth so others will be drawn to Jesus in us with whom we serve with enthusiasm.
• In hard times, we will pray, asking for more help and wisdom.  Quitting isn’t an option.
• Be inventive in hospitality—even to our enemies!  This becomes fun!
• Our new goal in life is to “make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.”
• Discover beauty in everyone.  Judge less—love more.
• Treat others better than they treat you—especially those who hate you for who you are.  Pray for your enemies. Pick a “take your enemy to lunch” day and serve them with real love.  Listen to their hurts.  Pray for their needs.  “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.”

These are God inspired words of wisdom have penetrated Paul’s being at the core!   Paul was a life changed by Jesus and now lives differently in his thinking and behaving.  Take it from one who was and still is being changed and transformed by Jesus—give all of you to all of Him.  You won’t regret it!  We are New lives becoming a new creations that God planned for us to be from the beginning!

Lord,

Thank you for these words that teach us your ways of Kingdom living.  Thank you for helping us to be then do what you say.  Thank you for saving our souls and making us whole in the Body of Christ.  Thank you for continually cleansing our hearts, renewing our minds, transforming our behaviors with your love, tender mercies, and amazing grace. Thank you for restoring the joy and peace of you in me and me in you daily.  I believe.  I’m listening as I embrace the grace you so generously give.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen!  Yes!

Father Abraham had many sons
Many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them and so are you
So let’s just praise the Lord…

I hear this children’s song, encouraging praise with all that we have; arms, legs, and torso’s, playing in the background of Paul’s letter to the Jews who are deciding whom they will follow.  Paul, who is a Jew, brought up in Jewish ways, but born again as a believer in Jesus has been given God’s Message of salvation through Jesus to the Jews and non-Jews alike.  Same Message to all people!

Paul delivers this Message in the right Spirit from God to urge the “insiders” Jews to accept Jesus as Messiah; reminding them of their heritage.  After all Jesus, also raised as a Jew, came through the “line of David” as the Messiah they hoped would come!  But some had given up on God and are self-serving in all their ways.  They walked out on God.  These words say it all; “Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in.”  God welcomed all who believe in Jesus the gift of eternal life!

Has God given up on them?  Not a chance—God’s love never gives up on us!

Romans 11, The Message

The Loyal Minority

^1-2 Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that! So we’re not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them.

^2-6 Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer?

God, they murdered your prophets,
They trashed your altars;
I’m the only one left and now they’re after me!

And do you remember God’s answer?

I still have seven thousand who haven’t quit,
Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish.

It’s the same today. There’s a fiercely loyal minority still—not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They’re holding on, not because of what they think they’re going to get out of it, but because they’re convinced of God’s grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.

^7-10 And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn’t succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The “self-interest Israel” became thick-skinned toward God. Moses and Isaiah both commented on this:

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways,
    God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears,
Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors,
    and they’re there to this day.

David was upset about the same thing:

I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals,
    break a leg walking their self-serving ways.
I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors,
    get ulcers from playing at god.

Pruning and Grafting Branches

^11-12 The next question is, “Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?” And the answer is a clear-cut No. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in. But the next thing you know, the Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing. Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!

^13-15 But I don’t want to go on about them. It’s you, the outsiders, that I’m concerned with now. Because my personal assignment is focused on the so-called outsiders, I make as much of this as I can when I’m among my Israelite kin, the so-called insiders, hoping they’ll realize what they’re missing and want to get in on what God is doing. If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If the first thing the Jews did, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what’s going to happen when they get it right!

^16-18 Behind and underneath all this there is a holy, God-planted, God-tended root. If the primary root of the tree is holy, there’s bound to be some holy fruit. Some of the tree’s branches were pruned and you wild olive shoots were grafted in. Yet the fact that you are now fed by that rich and holy root gives you no cause to gloat over the pruned branches. Remember, you aren’t feeding the root; the root is feeding you.

^19-20 It’s certainly possible to say, “Other branches were pruned so that I could be grafted in!” Well and good. But they were pruned because they were deadwood, no longer connected by belief and commitment to the root. The only reason you’re on the tree is because your graft “took” when you believed, and because you’re connected to that belief-nurturing root. So don’t get cocky and strut your branch. Be humbly mindful of the root that keeps you lithe and green.

^21-22 If God didn’t think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn’t give it a second thought. Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God—ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don’t presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, it’s game over.

^23-24 And don’t get to feeling superior to those pruned branches down on the ground. If they don’t persist in remaining deadwood, they could very well get grafted back in. God can do that. He can perform miracle grafts. Why, if he could graft you—branches cut from a tree out in the wild—into an orchard tree, he certainly isn’t going to have any trouble grafting branches back into the tree they grew from in the first place. Just be glad you’re in the tree, and hope for the best for the others.

A Complete Israel

^25-29 I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what’s going on and arrogantly assume that you’re royalty and they’re just rabble, out on their ears for good. But that’s not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house. Before it’s all over, there will be a complete Israel. As it is written,

A champion will stride down from the mountain of Zion;
    he’ll clean house in Jacob.
And this is my commitment to my people:
    removal of their sins.

From your point of view as you hear and embrace the good news of the Message, it looks like the Jews are God’s enemies. But looked at from the long-range perspective of God’s overall purpose, they remain God’s oldest friends. God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.

^30-32 There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you. Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in. In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in.

^33-36 Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out.

Is there anyone around who can explain God?
Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do?
Anyone who has done him such a huge favor
    that God has to ask his advice?

Everything comes from him;
Everything happens through him;
Everything ends up in him.
Always glory! Always praise!
    Yes. Yes. Yes.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

“Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!”

God turns the rebellion of His Chosen “insiders” into good for all non-Jewish “outsiders”! Only God can do that!  The Door they walked out of is still open wide for them to walk back in.  There is no one like our God! 

God is waiting patiently for the insiders Jews to realize what they are missing—a relationship with God by believing in Jesus, His Son as Messiah.  What a homecoming says Paul when the pruned and loyal non-pruned branches of Israel and the grafted-in branches of non-Jewish believers grow together from the same root of God’s love with His nourished care for all!

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23).  But all who believe in Jesus and repent of their sins are saved for Life!  There is no longer this “in” or “out” thinking—ALL who believe, original branches and grafted in branches growing on the same tree of Life is possible—all because of Jesus—God’s Plan!  Jesus changes everything.  God is everything we could ever hope for and truly need! 

God is God alone.  Don’t try to be God who saved you to others who don’t know God yet.  “Don’t get cocky”, says Paul, Remember, you aren’t feeding the root; the root is feeding you.”

 Everything comes from him;
Everything happens through him;
Everything ends up in him.
Always glory! Always praise!
    Yes. Yes. Yes.

Lord,

I believe.  I humbly confess that you are Lord and no one else.  I trust in You alone for Life!  Thank you for giving me life eternal.  No one but you can do that!

In Jesus Name, for Your glory, Amen!  Yes!

REDUCED TO RELIGION

I know a man, maybe you know him, too
You never can tell; he might even be you
He knelt at the altar, and that was the end
He’s saved, and that’s all that matters to him
His spiritual tummy, it can’t take too much
One day a week, he gets a spiritual lunch
On Sunday, he puts on his spiritual best
And gives his language a spiritual rest
He’s just a faaa…

He’s just a fat little baby!
Wa, wa, waaaaa…
He wants his bottle, and he don’t mean maybe
He sampled solid foods once or twice
But he says doctrine leaves him cold as ice
Ba, ba, ba, ba…ba, ba…ba, ba!
He’s been baptized, sanctified, redeemed by the blood
But his daily devotions are stuck in the mud
He knows the books of the Bible and John 3:16
He’s got the biggest King James you’ve ever seen!

I’ve always wondered if he’ll grow up someday
He’s momma’s boy, and he likes it that way
If you happen to see him, tell him I said,
“He’ll never grow, if he never gets fed”
He’s just a fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fa-at, fat…
Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat, Fatttt…Baby…

If Amy Grant were to sing this song she wrote in the eighties today, I can only imagine how many people in our world would be offended.  I’m chuckling to myself as I remember this song from my past.  I sang it in church because I got the message, but some did not.  Can you imagine the comments of today’s “offended” with icy stares from the religious?  “Who’s fat, why I’m fit as a fiddle!”  “I work hard to keep the fat off my body by working out every day!”  “You have no right to tell me who to live my life.”  “And another thing, I go to church every Sunday and do good stuff so I’m good.” 

Hint: It’s not about being physically fat. Yeah, missing the point, yet again world.  “Thou doth protest too much, me thinks”?

Romans 10, The Message

Israel Reduced to Religion

10 ^1-3 Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what’s best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time. I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God—but they are doing everything exactly backward. They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily peddle their knockoffs. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it.

^4-10 The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?

The word that saves is right here,
    as near as the tongue in your mouth,
    as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

^11-13 Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

^14-17 But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,

A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people
    telling all the good things of God!

But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.

^18-21 But haven’t there been plenty of opportunities for Israel to listen and understand what’s going on? Plenty, I’d say.

Preachers’ voices have gone ’round the world,
Their message to earth’s seven seas.

So the big question is, Why didn’t Israel understand that she had no corner on this message? Moses had it right when he predicted,

When you see God reach out to those
    you consider your inferiors—outsiders!—
    you’ll become insanely jealous.
When you see God reach out to people
    you think are religiously stupid,
    you’ll throw temper tantrums.

Isaiah dared to speak out these words of God:

People found and welcomed me
    who never so much as looked for me.
And I found and welcomed people
    who had never even asked about me.

Then he capped it with a damning indictment:

Day after day after day,
    I beckoned Israel with open arms,
And got nothing for my trouble
    but cold shoulders and icy stares.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

This passage is filled with how not to think and behave with the wonders of how God changes us from the inside out—all because the work of God through Jesus, His Son.  The pleas of Paul reveals his heart for God’s people, the Jews.  Saul/Paul was born a Jew and has the heritage of growing up in the ways of the Jews.  But then Jesus changed his mind about what and who is of most importance and beyond the rituals and religion of the Jews—namely an intimate, growing relationship with God by accepting that Jesus is Messiah who died to take away the sins of the world!  No one else but God provides salvation with complete forgiveness of sins—all sins.

Salvation is a gift from God delivered by Jesus.  We don’t earn it with how many times we attend church each Sunday, how many times we sing in the choir, teach Sunday School, carry the biggest Bible so others will know who we are, or wear badges of distinction as we serve.  We realize we can’t wash ourselves clean from our sins by vowing to be a better person…tomorrow.  Only Jesus saves us from our sins when we ask Him.  This is God’s Work in us as He relates with us daily. This is why Jesus is preached, says Paul to the Jews who are wrapped up so tight in their religion and added laws that they can’t see Jesus who can set them free to have a right relationship with God! 

The Jews who do not believe Jesus as Messiah have become “impressively” fat because of the mental weight gain of all the added self-made religious laws, time spent in judgment of others who do not adhere to their laws, along with the busyness of administering punish to the people “under them” with their interpretation of the Law in ways that support their arrogant pride.  This is a lot of work, but they do not and will not give up their way for God’s way.

But we’re not like that, right?  We don’t judge “outsiders” who don’t seem to fit in our traditional church ways, do we?  We don’t punish people with icy states when they don’t talk and walk like us who have grown up going to church?  We don’t get frustrated when new believers take too long to act “appropriately” to be where are in our spiritual stage of growth…do we? 

We preach Jesus as the One and Only who died for the sins of world and rose from death in victory to give us hope of life eternal!  We preach that all are welcome to begin a relationship with God through Jesus!  By our behaviors, we create environments that take away the apprehensions and anxieties of seeking visitors who have thought it over and finally had the courage to come to a place where we worship God in Spirit and in Truth. 

Because God first loved us; we love Him back in a growing relationship with God. We trust Him, not ourselves.  We lean on His understanding as we ask Him for wisdom We ask what HE wants us to be and do. Because of our relationship with God and His love; our love for others is evident by the look on our faces.  We love more and judge way less. We don’t expect or demand people to be like us; instead, we point people to Jesus as the perfect example of living in relationship with God.    

Day after day after day,
    I beckoned Israel with open arms,
And got nothing for my trouble
    but cold shoulders and icy stares.

How our indifference to a relationship with the One who love us most must break the heart of God…

Believe and be saved. 

Trust God.  Follow Jesus.

Resist the urge to judge by calling on the Name of Jesus to help us.  He will.

“Devout yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a grateful heart,” writes Paul.  “Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.” Colossians 4: 2, 5-6, NLT

Lord,

Help us to avoid merely attending church from obligation with eyes that judge. Help us to seek you with open hearts, minds, and souls ready to be filled with Your Holy Spirit.  Help us to be still and really get to know as we learn from you and grow in our relationship with you.  Help us to be the church of people who live life in Jesus Name for Your Glory to all people. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls with your new mercies for today, and restore the joy and peace of you in us and us in you—growing in our love for you.  I love you, Lord.

In Jesus Name, Amen

No regrets…ever…when Jesus is the Master.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” –Jesus, John 15:5, NLT

God’s purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.”—Paul, Romans 9:12, MSG

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! –Jesus, John 15:9-11, NLT

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still
And with all who will trust and obey

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey…

“I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
    I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.”—Hosea, quoted by Paul

Romans 9, The Message

God Is Calling His People

^1-5 At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It’s an enormous pain deep within me, and I’m never free of it. I’m not exaggerating—Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It’s the Israelites . . . If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I’d do it in a minute. They’re my family. I grew up with them. They had everything going for them—family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises, to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!

^6-9 Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit. It wasn’t Abraham’s sperm that gave identity here, but God’s promise. Remember how it was put: “Your family will be defined by Isaac”? That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise. Remember that promise, “When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son”?

^10-13 And that’s not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb—incapable of good or bad—she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, “The firstborn of your twins will take second place.” Later that was turned into a stark epigram: “I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.”

^14-18 Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for better or worse.

¹⁹ Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”

^20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:

I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
    I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
    they’re calling you “God’s living children.”

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:

If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
    and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
    salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
    Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:

If our powerful God
    had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
    like Sodom and Gomorrah.

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing.

They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
    a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
    you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God is the One and Only God; we are not.  We plan but God decides. 

Our response begins with fully trusting in God so that obeying God becomes who we are with God.  “Remain in Me,” says Jesus.  When we remain with God, believing in His promises, our desire to obey becomes stronger each day. 

When we ask God to lead us, we must not get in the way but follow how and where  He leads us.  God made us, we did not make Him.  God is the designer and creator, we are His beloved creation!

Loving God back is to obey what He says!

Paul reminded the Romans that no good work could bring salvation. Rather, God saves his people through his love.

But that’s not all!

When we come to Christ, God not only forgives us, he also adopts us and calls us His   beloved children—members of His family!  We once had no hope but now we have no fear!  Nobodies become somebodies as God’s own. 

How and why did God do this?  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we learned earlier from Paul.  (Romans 3:23) We stand before God full of rebellion and mistakes. Because of God’s justice he cannot dismiss our sin, but because of his love he cannot dismiss us! So, in an act which stunned the heavens, God sent His Son to tke our punishment on the cross for our sins. God’s justice and love are equally honored. And we, God’s creation, are forgiven. But the story doesn’t end with God’s forgiveness!

God calls us by name—His Name!  We are His children—joint heirs with Christ!  It would be enough if God just cleansed our name, but he does more. He gives us his name. It would be enough if God just set us free, but he does more. He takes us home. He takes us home to the Great Big House of God.

Come and go with me
To my Father’s house
Come and go with me
To my Father’s house
It’s a big big house
With lots and lots of rooms…

(Audio Adrenaline, By Barry Blair, Bob Herdman, Mark Stuart, Will McGinniss)

We need to decide what kind of righteousness we are seeking, whether we are depending on good works and character or trusting Christ alone for salvation. God does not save people based on birth or behavior. “By grace we have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, 9). The offer is made to “whoever believes” (John 3:16). To trust and obey Jesus, is to go and tell others teaching them about who and what God did for them, too, so they can become God’s own—all because of Jesus!

“I’ll say to Nobody, ‘You’re my dear Somebody,’and he’ll say ‘You’re my God!’”    –Hosea, God’s Prophet, Hosea 2:23

Lord,

Thank you for your gift of salvation. Thank you for saving me from myself!  Thank you for leading me, molding, and shaping me continuously to be all you created me to be before doing anything in Your Name.  Thank you for calling me by name and reminding me I am not just a numbered nobody but a beloved somebody in your family who has purpose in Your Kingdom.

In Jesus Name, Amen

I’m praying, God come
And turn this thing around
God, turn it around
God, turn it around
God, turn it around

The latter part of Romans 8, Paul’s encouraging letter to the churches, is probably the words most quoted by pastors, leaders, counselors, teachers who love God with all their hearts, minds, and souls and want to encourage others.  Like all believers in Jesus, we know that living in this imperfect world with unbelievers who do not know or have the love of God in them become people we must love like Jesus love us—unconditionally.  These troublesome, hurting people will be mockers of our faith with attempts to tear down the very character of our being in an effort to look and feel good about themselves. 

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, NIV

When crushed and broken in spirit by these momentary episodes of dark behaviors, Paul brings us back to the basics.  Even when others do not show love because of not knowing God or His love; God loves us and calls us by name.  Remember, Jesus, God’s One and Only Son was not loved or appreciated for His offer of salvation by all people when he walked the earth and demonstrated God’s love to humanity.  So, why do we expect anything different as we live for Jesus and point others to Him? 

We will go through similar troubles, trials, with humiliating mocking.  Even in the world of believers, we poke fun at each other when distracted by darkness, the evil who tempts us with looking and feeling good—thinking that bringing others down will lift us up.  But, like Paul reminds believers— “If we go through the hard times with Jesus, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with Him!”  Expect and embrace Jesus!  Be certain of Jesus.  He IS coming back, you know. 

Meanwhile, God has a way of turning things around.  His Holy Spirit keeps us focused and grounded when we call on the Name of Jesus for help.  He’s done it for me many times…a day!  That’s who He is…

I’m calling on the name
That changes everything, yes
God, turn it around
God, turn it around
God, turn it around

All of my hope
Is in the name
The name of Jesus
Breakthrough will come
Come in the name
The name of Jesus

I’m praying, God come
And turn this thing around…
(“God, Turn it Around”; Songwriters: Anthony Skinner / Jess Cates / Jon Reddick)

Romans 8, The Message

We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

* * *

^18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

^22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

^26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

^31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

When the world around us brings us down and makes us weary in our walk; call on the Name of Jesus.  No words to pray?  No thoughts about what to ask?  Ask the Holy Spirit who lives in us and knows our hearts to pray for us—He will!  How amazing the love of God who provides not only His One and Only Son to save us and advocates for us but also provides His Holy Spirit living in us!  Who else does that in our lives?  No one!

With God on our side, how can we lose?  We cannot.  He’s already won the war with darkness!  “The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.”  Let that sink in…

Christ is my firm foundation
The rock on which I stand
When everything around me is shaken
I’ve never been more glad
That I put my faith in Jesus
‘Cause He’s never let me down
He’s faithful through generations
So why would He fail now?
He won’t

(“Firm Foundation; He’s Gonna Make A Way”, Maverick; Songwriters: Austin Davis / Chandler Moore / Cody Carnes)

God cannot fail.  God is forever faithful.  Failing is not in His nature.  Since God is love, His love never fails, never gives up, never quits, or runs out on us!  God’s love is beyond the love of human thinking until we believe. Then God’s love comes to abide in us.  The more we get to know God, the more His love is demonstrated in and through us!  This is a relationship that cannot be severed by anyone on earth or below the earth! 

Like Paul, “I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”  Are you convinced?

I’ve still got joy in chaos
I’ve got peace that makes no sense
I won’t be going under
I’m not held by my own strength
‘Cause I’ve built my life on Jesus
He’s never let me down
He’s faithful through every season
So why would He fail now? (Shout it out)

… He won’t!

Lord,

Thank you for your blessed assurance of our intimate relationship of unfailing love with You.  Help me by your power working in me to love others like you love us. Cleanse my heart, renew my thinking that transforms my behaviors, refresh my soul with your new mercies for today while restoring the joy and peace of you in me and me in you.  You love me.  I love you back.  This is an eternal commitment.  I’m yours.  I will live joyfully expectant!

In Jesus Name, Amen

… Rain came, wind blew
But my house was built on You
I’m safe with You
I’m gonna make it through…

In seventh grade government class, I had a great teacher who taught us how the “laws of the land” were made and why they were made.  We learned the responsibilities of each branch of government (executive, judicial and legislative) that were designed with checks and balances.  Laws are made to protect us from each other and certain circumstances that arise in daily living.  “Our freedom ends where another person’s nose begins” (Oliver Wendall Holmes) she would quote often in her teaching.  That meant laws are also meant to help us get along with each other. We were also taught that even though legislatures, people elected to make the laws, have the authority to create, add, or rewrite certain laws, that doesn’t mean that people’s attitudes will be changed just because a law is written to do things a better way.  That’s when the judicial branch, those who enforce the laws, take precedence.

This teacher demonstrated how the judicial branch enforces and upholds the laws written.  We first wrote the laws of the classroom. Some of us were enforcers of those laws by “arresting” those who disobeyed.  We would then bring the accused to court (held on Fridays) and have mock trials with real “cases” brought before a judge and jury of our peers.  Our teacher appointed a judge, a defense team, a prosecting team, bailiff, court recorder, and jury.  Our “homework” was to get the facts so that we could present a good case with hopes of being on the “winning” team.  After closing arguments, the judge would have the final say—along with our teacher, as she would be the one to give us a grade.  I will never forget this teacher who brought our government process to life in a memorable way and allowed us to experience what the law means to each one of us. Thank you, Mrs. Gamble!  I hope you enjoyed this quick history and government lesson and will see the connection in our passage today.  Laws do not give us the power to behave.  The intent of the law is to point the difference in what is right and wrong along with the consequences.  We decide to obey or not.  We need help.

The Law of God.  Paul puts the Law in perspective for us as he explains it to the Romans.  The Law convicts us but it does not save us.  Only Jesus saves us.  We are guilty as charged and owe a huge debt for our sins.  But it is Jesus who redeems (buys us back with His life). Jesus chose to take humanity’s place for the punishment for all sins and pay the sin-debt in full.  Jesus went to court, in others words, and took all the blame for the sins of the world and then was pronounced guilty by His accusers.  He died in our place for our sins.  We are “free to go” with eternal life.

Yes, the Law convicts us of wrongdoing but it is Jesus saves us and set us free from the wrapping of our sins when we call on His Name and repent.   This act of repentance solves our sin problem once and for all because Jesus’ sacrifice set us right with God!

Only Jesus Christ, our Advocate, has all authority to judge us but instead stood and still stands on our behalf before God the Father eternally to plead our case, asking for God’s generous grace and mercy.  Because God so loved the world, we are immediately forgiven and set free.  Jesus has been given all authority from God to judge when He comes back for his own.  Be ready!

God’s love with the power of His Spirit immediately comes to live in us, helping us to transform our attitudes and behaviors that the law did not provide.  We now have a new desire to love others in the same ways God loves us.  Because we love God and now know the extent of Jesus’ love for us along with the bonus gift of His Holy Spirit’s power within us; we learn to forgive others in the same way Jesus forgave us—quickly and completely. Jesus changes everything!

Romans 8, The Messaage

The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms

^1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

^3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

^5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

^9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

^12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

^15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Mrs. Gamble taught us more about life in her process of teaching us lessons in government than anyone else.  As a believer, she added, it all boils down to this; “treat others better than they treat you.  This is the “golden rule” of behavior.” 

As I grew in my faith and study of Gods’ Word, I realize where she got her information—from Jesus!  She read Matthew 5!  Read this passage and you will understand!  “You have heard it said, but I say to you, says Jesus; —do better than the law dictates because you are my rep!”  Yes, this is a paraphrase from me, but when you read it you’ll get it! 

For example:  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[i] and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” —Jesus, Matthew 5:43-47

The law cannot control us. The believer lives a righteous life, not in the power of the law, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. The law does not have the power to produce holiness; it can only reveal and condemn sin. But the indwelling Holy Spirit enables us to walk in obedience to God’s will.  Warren Wiersbe helps us to understand;

“The unsaved person does not have the Spirit of God and lives in the flesh and for the flesh. This person’s mind is centered on the things that satisfy the flesh. But the Christian has the Spirit of God within and lives in an entirely new and different sphere. This person’s mind is fixed on the things of the Spirit. This does not mean that the unsaved person never does anything good, or that the believer never does anything bad. It means that the bent of their lives is different. One lives for the flesh, and the other lives for the Spirit.” –Wiersbe, Study Bible

“WHAT’S NEXT, PAPA?”  A response that flows from a growing intimate relationship with God…

The Law does not contain the spirit of adventure.  The Law merely points out right and wrong ways to live in this world with others.  What the Law did not do, Jesus did.  When we sin, Jesus saves us from our sins.  Upon repenting we come into God’s family by believing what Jesus did for us.  We become new creations, a “rebirth” from old attitudes and behaviors to a new way to think and act.  We now live a new life that is very different than our old lives lived only for self-satisfaction that led nowhere. God adopts us and gives us positions as sons and daughters! A child of God by faith can draw on his or her spiritual wealth as an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ to live an “adventurously expectant” life by God’s Holy Spirit in us!  This is amazing love!

Lord,

Thank you for teaching us how to love and live by demonstrating the extent of your love for us through your sacrifice for sins.  The Law convicts but you save.  Help us to abide in you as you abide in us.  We haven’t fully arrived and still need your care and correction along with the power to change.  Cleanse our hearts and change our minds.

In Jesus Name, Amen

We say one thing but we do the opposite.  Ugh.  We encourage others in their walk but trip and fall in our own walk.  We stop one day a week to worship God, thanking Jesus for all He did for us. But come Monday morning we jump into the worship of our weekly agendas that demands and enslaves us of our time and thoughts.  We strive to please our bosses by working hard to produce an income that satisfies all we want out of life—namely making more money for more wants beyond our needs.  The more we make, the more we spend.  We are torn between the passions of this world and all that God wants for us.  We live a contradictive life. 

We obey the laws of the land but feel most times they are written for someone else who needs them more than us.  We fudge the speed limit and push the pedal harder to get through a yellow to red light at the intersections without thinking of anyone else that might be hurt from our actions.  Laws are written to protect us.  But sometimes we use the Law as an indicator of how to get around the law for our own benefit.  The line is drawn which serves to seduce the rebellious tendencies in us to see what we can get away with or hide.  We live a contradictive life. 

Believers live a contradictive life.  Paul is no exception.  He is not perfect, either.  Knowing this, Paul explains what is really going on in our thought life and helps us to ask the right question to avoid a life of contradiction.

Romans 7, The Message

Torn Between One Way and Another

7 ^1-3 You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she’s free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she’s obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one’s disapproval.

^4-6 So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

⁷ But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.

^8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.

¹³ I can already hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.

^14-16 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

^17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

^21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

²⁴ I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

²⁵ The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Long ago a comedian made these words famous; “The devil made me do it!”  Evil does not force us to do anything we didn’t think already think of doing.  Evil does not have that kind of power over people, but he and his demons do have power to seduce us.  He works overtime to distract, deceive with attempts to destroy our faith in God and His will for us.  He guides us to fulfill what we think we want using all kinds of ways to get it—even if it involves cheating, lying, exaggerating our importance or inflating our influence on others who have what we want.  When we are ME centered we are prey for the devil’s fun.

“I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?” admits Paul.  This is the perfect description of living a contradictive life that frustrates us who believe and desire to please God. 

Paul answers the question and provides the answer for our contradictive dilemma:

“The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

Paul further explains in our next passage that we will study tomorrow, but I can’t wait, can you?  So, here is the beginning of chapter 8;

“With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.  Romans 8:1-4, MSG

The struggle is real.  But we are not alone!

When we are tempted, we must immediately cry out for help in the Name of Jesus.  God’s enemy hates believers on their knees, crying out in the Name of Jesus because he knows Jesus has already won this war!  The enemy flees the area when we take a humbled position before God in Jesus Name asking for help!  We are promised this help and Jesus, our Advocate, gives us all we need!  “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 The struggle is real; but the promise is undeniably real!

Paul taught the Romans that the law could never guarantee eternal life. He proved again that only Jesus Christ could save us.  The Bible teaches us how sinful we have become, but Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit provide the power to overcome sin.  This power is available to all who believe and call on the Name of Jesus. 

What is the first thing we do when we enter a dark room?  Flip the switch to turn on the lights, right?  When the enemy leads us to darkness; flip the switch and turn on the power of Jesus that is within us so the Light of Jesus can show us the way out.

Lord,

We face temptations daily that distract us from your best life for us.  Give us wisdom to void contradictive living.  May we offer our lives to you as an offering.  We know that you will indeed guide us to your perfect will on any given day.  Show us your agenda for our lives even today.  May our yes be yes and our no be no.  Thank you for the power you give us to run from the battle with the enemy you have already won while resisting the temptations that seduce our souls.

In Jesus Name, Amen

I grew up in an area of the country, dubbed “the Bible belt,” with people who attended local churches with a doctrine that was misunderstood by most of their members’ kids.  As a teen, I remember one conversation I had specifically with one of my friends who like to party hardy with harsh consequences.  My heart ached for her (and others).  It confused me that she did things that I was taught inappropriate for a believer who wanted to follow in Jesus’ ways.  So, one day, I asked her; “Why do you do things that do not match what we say we believe?”  She was a good friend and we are still friends today! 

She was rather flippant but very assured as a teen as she responded; “I was saved and baptized into my church so I am good forever no matter what I do now.”  “I can do what I want because once saved, always saved—eternal security.”  That pretty much ended our conversation but left me further confused—until I read Paul’s explanation in this passage. 

Romans 6, The Message

When Death Becomes Life

^1-3 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

^3-5 That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.

^6-11 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

^12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

What Is True Freedom?

^15-18 So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

¹⁹ I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

^20-21 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

^22-23 But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Today, decades later, some people come on any given Sunday to church, impressed with the love of Jesus and His believing people.  Church is a nice place to be treated well as opposed to other places of business.  We say we believe Jesus, too.  Good!  But we keep on doing what we did before we said it. To say I believe without allow Jesus to change our minds and transform our behaviors is like being stuck in shifting sand or like treading water in a lake with no dock in sight.  We aren’t going anywhere!

Many throw up their hands in exasperation when prompted to take next steps in growing in God’s love and His ways when it becomes too hard to let go of habitual behaviors for God’s best.  The common phrase these days is “I’m just a hot mess, but Jesus loves me, praise God.”  This is treading water.  We sink or we can swim! 

Stay with me…Yes, we’re all a mess in need of a Savior.  Paul tells us clearly, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. Yes, Jesus loves us just the way we are, but He also loves us enough not to leave us in the mess we created.  Jesus forgives with power to change.  Jesus takes us farther and higher in His Kingdom of God thinking where our views change as we begin to see life from God’s point of view.  We no longer enjoy the mess but enjoy the goodness of God!  We want to be where He is!

As we move from the mess and offer our whole selves to God, we notice that the way we lived (behaviors) before accepting Jesus begins to transform.  Passions change within us while compassion for others is enhanced.  We begin to look less at ourselves, catering to our own self-interests, our needs and wants, and yes, our mess and begin to look at how we can help others in their need of a Savior. In other words, when Jesus is not only our Savior but is becoming Lord of our lives—everything about us changes! 

Our mess becomes our message of redemption!  We no longer live as a mess or in the mess; we live redeemed and free from the mess!  Our messy lives are no longer our “boast;” our only boast is Jesus!  He is the rescue from the mess.  Jesus’ work on a cruel cross redeemed us set us free from the mess!   

We are not perfect and Paul speaks of our imperfections but he is also telling us we cannot use our imperfections as an excuse to keep on sinning.  Admit, sometimes we take pride in our mess.  But it seems that we diminish the great and excruciating sacrifice of Jesus–our sins nailed on that cross through His flesh—when we keep on doing what he saved us from in the first place!

Will we be ever be perfect?  Not in this life, but do we give up?  No, because we are preparing for when Jesus comes back to take us home for eternity.  We keep on striving to be and do what He says because we love Him back and His ways are always best! 

We discover that the more we lean on Jesus as Lord of our whole being, changing from the inside out, He helps us when we do fall back into the same mess or some other mess.  We also notice that we see sin more readily.  Because of previous experiences, we know that by His power we can get up and run from it.  Each time we fall we are quicker to call on His name, and allow Him to pull us up and out with much quicker speed—knowing that He will.

What is eternal—

His unfailing and unchanging love— “nothing can separate us from His love” Romans 8:35-39

The inhabitance of His Holy Spirit living in us with power equaling the resurrection power that raised Jesus from death to life everlasting!  This same power works in all believers who are becoming devoted disciples as they leave the mess, seeking to be transformed by Jesus as Lord.

Jesus’ aggressive forgiveness called grace that sets us right with God.  We are not perfect but we are perfectly forgiven.

Jesus’ removal of all sins, “as far as the east is from the west,” when we call on His Name and ask for His forgiveness.  Our security is in Jesus alone—our rescue from sin.  “Go and sin no more” Jesus told the woman caught in a mess.  Jesus compassionately lifted her up, forgave her without condemnation, and gave her hope of a better life to live in His Name, set right with God. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3:16-17

There’s more to come from Paul…but we are getting a much clearer picture of what it means to live to please God because of His love in us. 

Pause to pray.  Thank God for Jesus, His Plan of redeeming us from the messiness of sin.  Do I really believe in Jesus or just impressed with Jesus?  Reflect on the excuses we make, and ask forgiveness for them.  Ask God to help by His wisdom as our love for Him grows. 

Lord,

Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, transform my behaviors, refresh my soul with your new mercies, and restore the joy and peace of you in me and me in you.  Daily and forever.  I love you with all that is in me.

In Jesus Name, Amen

In the beginning God, His Son with Him, created all and is in all.  His greatest masterpiece, His work of art and heart, was Adam followed by Eve.  From God’s lungs, He breathed life into them.  He loved and enjoyed their company as they walked in the cool of the evening, under the stars, in a magnificent garden of paradise that only God could provide. God also gave them the freedom to choose.

Soon the Enemy entered, presenting these first humans with two choices: Follow God or be like the enemy had done, be gods themselves and follow their own ways without God.  These perfect humans, created in the image of their Creator, chose to sin by saying no to God and yes to the Enemy who enticed them to sin—to have what they thought they deserved.  They are no longer perfect, living in a perfect place, with a perfect God.  They were disobedience to God by choosing death over life.

But God knew and God loved.  God also designed the perfect plan to resolve decisions made to sin that led to death. This Plan would reconcile (reconnect the relationship) to God that separated humanity from God. This Plan was Jesus whom God sent to save us and show us who He is and what He does in and for us.

God did not and does not force humanity to love Him back because that is not real love not how the love of God works.  So, God demonstrated His love for us—even while we were yet sinners.  Jesus, His Son, took the punishment for our sins on His shoulders and nailed them once and for all to a cross.  God’s love for his created was demonstrated deeply and compassionately by this act of sacrifice.  He knew exactly what everyone needed most:  Grace.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3:16-17

Romans 5, The Message

The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift

^12-14 You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in—first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.

^15-17 Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

^18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

^20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

ALL have sinned.  There is no one is good.  No one is perfect.  Only God is Good.  Only God is Perfect.  To believe otherwise is falling for the enemy’s lie yet again—just like Adam and Eve!

God sent His Perfect Son to earth to be Love and Light to all; with a promise to save us from all our sins!  But a sacrifice of perfection had to be made for our sins.  Jesus was indeed that perfect sacrifice for a flawed humanity.  To all who believed in Jesus, all were saved for Life!  Eternal Life! 

God’s aggressive forgiveness, called grace was delivered personally by Jesus, God’s One and Only Son.  Love and Mercy came down to earth and Grace won the battle between the two opposing forces.  Grace still wins for all who believe!

“In a nutshell, we have two choices:  Life or death.  Choose wisely as the consequences of our choices are a matter of life or death!  We are saved from our sins because of God’s love coupled by His mercy and grace.  In short, mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve; grace is God giving us something we do not deserve—namely, Jesus!

We are not perfect but we are perfectly forgiven forever!   Pause to pray and be grateful!  Focus all our attention on the One who saves us from our selfish sins of disobedience and sets us right with God who created us!

Are you hurting and broken within?
Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin?
Jesus is calling
Have you come to the end of yourself?
Do you thirst for a drink from the well?
Jesus is calling

O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ

Leave behind your regrets and mistakes
Come today, there’s no reason to wait
Jesus is calling
Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy
From the ashes, a new life is born
Jesus is calling

O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood

Oh, what a Savior
Isn’t He wonderful?
Sing hallelujah, Christ is risen
Bow down before Him
For He is Lord of all
Sing hallelujah, Christ is risen

O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ

O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ

The Father’s arms are open wide..

(Come to the Altar, by Elevation Worship. Songwriters: Wade Joye / Christopher Brown / Mack Brock / Steven Furtick) https://youtu.be/VT_br9kJVNw?si=9rmRdzTwA8xmuatS

There is nothing we have done that God’s grace cannot overcome.  Come…

Lord,

Thank you for your aggressive forgiveness that provides the Way back to You who is the Truth who leads us to Life eternal with You!  Thank you, Father God. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit who cares, convicts, confronts and encourages us stay connected and in constant communion with our Creator who loves us most!

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen!

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus
Sing His mercy and His grace
In the mansions bright and blessed
He’ll prepare for us a place

When we all, when we all get to Heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be (rejoicing that will be)
When we all see Jesus
We’ll sing and shout the victory (shout the victory)

… Onward to the prize before us
Soon His beauty we’ll behold
Soon the Pearly Gates will open
We shall tread the streets of gold

(Author: E. E. Hewitt, 1898)

I grew up singing hymns of praise such as this one, “When We All Get to Heaven,” thinking the victory in Jesus (another hymn) won’t happen until I pass from this life to the next. Sometimes we act as if what God does is at the end of life.  But that is not the case.  We receive victory as soon as we receive and believe in the Victor!

Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever
He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood
He loved me ‘ere I knew Him and all my love is due Him
He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood

(“Victory in Jesus,” Songwriters; E. M. Bartlett,1939)

God gave us Jesus.  Upon believing Jesus as our Savior, we have been immediately cleared and declared “not guilty” of all our sins!  We discard the old lifestyle and embrace a new way of living, step by step with His Spirit that leads to real life that is eternal!  A profound relationship immediately begins with God, because Jesus made us presentable to God by removing our repented sins once and for all!

God welcomes us with open arms and throws the doors to His Kingdom, (and the wisdom of His Kingdom thinking and behaving), wide open to experience His grace and see His glory at work all around us! 

There’s no waiting on aisle three!  The Three-in-One; God, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit stands ready to help us develop the character traits of Jesus as we cannot do this on our own.  We are given gifts and abilities from God that are beyond ourselves to serve others in need of a Savior.  We now love God back with all our hearts, minds, and souls and obey His Holy Spirit who lives within us.  This is the victory—when we see, really see and believe, Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives right now!

God did not wait for us to clean up our act.  Jesus, sent by God, acted on our behalf, while we were yet sinners, to save us.  So, why wait until death looms over us to accept God’s gift of generous grace—the removal of our sins?  And why wait to sing and shout until we all get to heaven?  Sing and shout the victory right now!  Seriously, stop and give Him praise!

Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance
I just want to praise you, I just want to praise you
You broke the chains now I can lift my hands
And I’m gonna praise you
I’m gonna praise you…

(“Shackles”, Songwriters: Erica Atkins-Campbell / Trecina Atkins-Campbell / Warryn Campbell)

Romans 5, The Message

Developing Patience

5 ^1-2 By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

^3-5 There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

^6-8 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

^9-11 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Our response depends on our belief.  Do we really believe what God says about Himself and His Son really real? 

Pause, be still, evaluate, reflect. 

Does my life reflect the victory of Jesus? 

What we truly believe is demonstrated in our behaviors.

Still holding back?  There is nothing you have done that God cannot and will not forgive in Jesus Name.  “At our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of His Son…”Believe and be saved. 

Then sing and shout the victory!

Lord,

Thank you for your sacrifice that saved us and your resurrection power available to us to live in relationship with you!  Thank you for daily cleansing our hearts, renewing our minds, correcting our course, refreshing our souls with new mercies, and restoring the joy ad peace of you in us and us in you.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Shine.
Make ’em wonder whatcha got.
Make ’em wish that they were not
On the outside looking bored.
Shine.
Let it shine before all men.
Let em see good works and then
Let em glorify the Lord.

(“Shine”, Newsboys, Songwriters; Songwriters: Angel Taylor / Kevin Hammond / Michael Blue / Mikal Blue)